MONTHS before 9-11, Philippine authorities thwarted a terrorist plot to down a dozen American jetliners in one horrendous attack. Although there was little confirmation of how the information that tipped off officials was obtained, it was widely believed that coercion in the form of physical torture played a role.

Under the circumstances, many Americans would agree that whatever it takes to save lives is justifiable, but only if someone else is doing the torturing. And while Americans understand that war often produces moral quandaries, the images of such brutality these actions produce are utterly abhorrent to the way most of us want to view ourselves. Moreover, it is not the way we want the rest of the world to see us.

We sometimes accept the fruits of such interrogations as long as we aren’t aware of how they were obtained. When we do find out, there is near-universal disgust, expressed by demands for full disclosure and punishment for those involved. It is a tragic byproduct of men and women put under enormous pressure to glean intelligence that will save lives, and it has been repeated over and over again throughout history.

Does that make it any less odious? Of course it doesn’t. There are rules of behavior even in war, and they are there to protect both sides from just the sort of degrading and dehumanizing acts recently revealed as allegedly having been carried out by U.S. military police in Iraq. Those actions have lasting repercussions for us all. Not only do they harden the resistance to what we are trying to accomplish, they make American soldiers or civilians that much more vulnerable to comparable treatment should they be captured or kidnapped.

Furthermore, the alleged mistreatment of prisoners becomes a political disaster with long-range impact, undercutting this nation’s contention that our policy is to use Iraq as a model of democracy for the rest of the Middle East. The fact that the alleged mistreatment took place in a prison once used by Saddam Hussein to torture and even murder his fellow countrymen makes it all the more appalling and disrupting to our claims of caring and benevolence for the Iraqi people. The incident lends credence to charges in the Arab world that we are no different from those we have displaced.

Always amazing in these circumstances is the fact that those who are intimately involved in the atrocities can’t resist recording them. It was true in Nazi Germany and in Cambodia and in dozens of other places. In the Iraqi prison, photos of naked prisoners displayed on television and in newspapers around the globe seem to be complete and startling disdain for such damning evidence of wrongdoing.

The Army’s relatively swift move to get to the bottom of the matter and to punish those who are responsible may have kept it from besmirching our reputation even more, if possible. To some degree, at least, it certifies that we do not take these alleged violations of human rights lightly and that in an open society they get found out and dealt with. The alleged incidents took place in October and December, and by January an investigation had begun, resulting in steps against the immediate perpetrators and their officers. Now it appears that rather than being just the actions of a few, there may have been encouragement from military intelligence and perhaps even the CIA to enhance interrogations.

The guards in this prison outside of Baghdad were from a reserve unit. But that is no excuse. They presumably knew right from wrong even if it is found that the alleged behavior was somehow sanctioned by intelligence officers. The obligation to refuse a clearly illegal order whether issued directly or implied has been long established. Have we forgotten Nuremberg?

Extracting information is a delicate business. One could conceive of situations where the end justified the means. We should not be naive about that. This wasn’t close to being that sort of situation. Rather, unlike what occurred in the Philippines, this was rooted in sadism, not patriotism.

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